How about 2 3rd place finishes for the baby goats my friend took to the show? Ok. I know, you don’t read my blog to hear about cute little baby goats. CuteOverload needs a new category for them though. They are pretty adorable.
Dinner Friday night at Calico was superb. The duckling I had was okay, but the bites of the filet mignon and bouliabasse made me regret the duck. The patisserie was the real treat. I had one of the mini cakes. It was a white cake with mascarpone layered in the middle with dark chocolate ganache and a merigue kiss on top. TASTY! I believe the name of the cake was ‘Joy’. Add a glass of wine, a cup of tea and splitting the check four ways, and my share of dinner was about $45. This was a planned fancy dinner we wanted to do because everything else for the weekend would be fair food and fast food.
The hotel was actually a motel. It was ridiculously close to the fairgrounds on the main drag through town. Only by camping on the fairgrounds could we have gotten closer. (Rhinebeck is a one-stop light town. Most Hudson Valley towns are.) My share for two nights was $65. There were four in the room on Friday and Saturday. I had to leave on Sunday morning, so the last night was split by the remaining two.
The Festival itself was $10 admissions. I ate deep fried pickles ($5) and an artichoke ‘freda’ ($7), which is like a pizza. I carried in my own cold beverages in an insulated bag. (Yay for good freebies from work! Bag, not drinks.)
Now here’s where I broke down and bought stuff. I have been missing spinning oil from my wheel and I was determined to buy a needlenosed bottle of oil by Schacht. They happen not to be the makers of my wheel and bottles range in price from $6.50 to 7.00. Since the difference isn’t huge, I bought it when my friends were in line and had asked a retailer for it. Good. Now my wheel won’t wear down too much. Proper oiling is essential to maintenance. If I want to refill the bottle, it’s 10W-40 motor oil. Very cheap!
Even further into my decline was my obsession with soaps as gifts. I did shop around for this. There were a plethora of products to choose from, including a delectable bar of chocolate soap. I wanted to eat it because it smelled so rich and chocolatey! But I refrained. Instead I got a good deal at a booth where they had hand cut herbal soaps, 3 for $10 plus tax ($32.40). They probably aren’t the absolute most perfect soaps, but as these are destined to be Christmas gifts, I felt justified in the purchase since this wasn’t craft stuff for me, but for for presents.
Next I bought a pound of undyed roving to felt around the soaps. The pricing was ridonkulous. It was so ridiculous, it was ridonkulous. I bought it for $15 a pound, which any spinner will tell you is a very good price for clean milled wool roving. You only get pricing like that on volume orders over 10 lbs. I also bought $17 worth of some heavy yarn, but I hope to give or sell it to a friend who has been hunting for some yarn like this.
The last item bought at the fair was a tub of $7 wool butter from Baitsholts Farm. It’s a really nice body cream. I made a boo boo at the booth and glopped on too much. But this stuff was awesome. I washed and dried my hands all day and poured Purell on them and the wool butter did a very nice job of keeping my hands moisturized without reapplication. (Purell for when I was petting the animals.) So far so good. My shins dry out and this stuff has kept them moisturized and there’s no ashy/scalyness I usually get after a hot shower.
Gas was $58. I managed to buy none of it in Jersey where it’s cheap, but you have to tip the attendant. As a gas retailer’s kid, I say ‘EFF THAT!’ I will always pump my own dammit. I also figured out that the per gallon price for what I would have put into the car was just as expensive as paying $2.879 a self-serve gallon in NY. I know my girlfriend thinks I’m slightly nuts, but I told her in advance where exactly I thought we would stop to buy gas on this trip. I made it to the festival on one tank. I could have returned home on one tank, but I took a side trip to Staten Island and that would have put me close to empty I think. Safer to buy some in DE at my favorite rest stop, however, I should have driven to the south end because there was a price difference again.
Tolls are a mystery. All I know is this. DE cost me $4 up and $4 back. MD cost me $7 to get out. Last I checked the Outerbridge Crossing is $6. The Inner Harbor tunnel is $2 each way. The NJ Turnpike was $7.90. I am sure I am missing a few in there because the NY State Thruway didn’t make sense to me.
Since my friend and I were splitting the cost of the trip, she bought the fancy dinner and one of my meals on the road. I paid for all the tolls, gas and hotel, so really my expenditure for the weekend was only $254.30, well under the budgeted $330.00. Much less than expected, but I still shouldn’t have bought anything there except the spinning oil. Great impulse control I showed this weekend. *sigh*
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I was raised in New Jersey. I still get my gas in New Jersey. I have never in my life seen ANYone tip a gas attendant in New Jersey. Ever. Ever.
Those tolls are a beast. I don’t even know how much they are anymore now that I use EZPass, but those DE and MD tolls on 95 don’t even get you access to a bridge, just from one strip of highway to an identical strip of highway. At least a troll lets you on a bridge or over a river when you pay them. Sheesh.
Sistah Ant – Interesting, but why would you NOT tip the attendant if he cleans your windows and checks your tires and oil? I mean, it’s like the waiter, a necessary evil. (Plus the lines are always hellishly long at the toll plaza gas stations in NJ and I like to keep on movin’! You know the song.)
I vote for pictures of baby goats. But that’s just me.
I think we’ve found the discrepancy – I have never in my life seen a gas attendant clean windows, check tires, or check oil. They walk up, you say “fill it, regular please,” and they do, and then you pay and drive away when they put your cap back on…
Sistah Ant – Don’t you know that’s what FULL SERVE means? You get them to do all that dirty work for you so you don’t have to. They will top your oil off, etc. Every 1000 miles, you should check the oil level between your oil changes (every 3-5K miles).
My pop still got tips when he ran full service off one pump every morning for a few hours.
Mapgirl, don’t be silly, I know what full serve means, but you didn’t say you wanted all that in your post, and most people don’t ask for it, they just want gas. If I got full service, I would tip. But like you, I’m doing all that extra stuff myself!
Hi Sistah Ant – Oh sorry. I wasn’t sure if you were one of those princess types that ignores standard maintenance. You see, I rarely do that stuff, so if there’s someone going to do it for me, HECK YEAH.